Taking some pressure off yourself first is a good way to ease any anxiety you might have. “Give yourself permission to not know everything about how to approach something so you don’t feel like you need to be an expert or have everything figured out,” Appio suggests. “When you allow yourself to be a beginner, you’ll restore your sense of play, curiosity, and adventure, which usually help you keep moving forward.” How true!

In Lazar’s first study, she looked long-term meditators vs a control group. They found that meditators have an increase amount of gray matter in the insula and sensory regions. When you’re mindful, you’re paying attention to your sensory experiences, so it stands to reason that your senses would be enhanced.

Many people in society today work at jobs they don’t like, and find themselves with little or no time for activities that increase the quality of their lives. Such people are being kept out of alignment with their inner selves.

Traditionally, society has pressured people into conformity. Peer pressure to conform to an immediate social group begins at school because, from an early age, people are taught that they should conform to outside standards.

Ultimately, the reason why love and compassion bring the greatest happiness is simply that our nature cherishes them above all else. The need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence. It results from the profound interdependence we all share with one another. However capable and skillful an individual may be, left alone, he or she will not survive. However vigorous and independent one may feel during the most prosperous periods of life, when one is sick or very young or very old, one must depend on the support of others.

I must emphasize again that merely thinking that compassion and reason and patience are good will not be enough to develop them. We must wait for difficulties to arise and then attempt to practice them.